


Solid Ground

by Teacandles



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teacandles/pseuds/Teacandles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a fight gone horribly wrong, Erik struggles to find solid ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solid Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Done for [this prompt](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/7736.html?thread=15345464#t15345464) on the kink meme.

His breath rose up before him in lazy plumes of white against the dark night air. The sounds of the sleeping city around him were soothing in a way, lulling Erik into a sense of security he seemed to have forgotten in the past couple weeks. He didn’t know how exactly he’d ended up in this part of town—it was nowhere near any of his usual haunts, but it didn’t really matter. He put his head down and kept walking, aimless. Charles was waiting for him at home, he knew, and Erik simply couldn’t bear to face him right now.

The thought of the other man set Erik’s teeth on edge, and he fought the urge to slam his fist into the brick wall of the nearest building as the memory of Charles’s voice echoed in his ear, taunting him with its softness. Charles. Why did he always have to be so difficult about every little thing? Always nagging. Always criticizing. Always finding that one little thing that was irritating Erik at any given moment and twisting it into something huge and unavoidable. He was always blowing things out of proportion, and it seemed that nothing Erik did these days was good enough any more.

The fight tonight had been inevitable, just like the one last night and the night before. The only difference tonight was that Erik had refused to put up with Charles’s nonsense like usual. He’d run away, and as the swift rush of air from a passing car swept over him, he knew he’d made the right choice.

His jumped a bit as his phone buzzed angrily in his pocket, and he pulled it out to check the caller ID. Charles’s name and number flashed across the bottom of the screen, the little black letters and numbers harsh against his eyes, and Erik shoved the phone back into his pocket, pointedly ignoring the call. His face lit with renewed anger, and he picked up his pace. It was the sixth call from Charles in little under an hour, and Erik simply couldn’t deal with him and his mounting pile of issues. Not right now. He ignored the soft vibration in his pocket and relaxed a bit when his phone finally went still.

He knew that if he headed home now, Charles would apologize, the same as always, but nothing would change. Everything would fine between them until the next day, and then Charles would go right back into the spiral of criticism that had caused this mess to boil over in the first place.

He sighed and paused in his tracks, not sure where to go from here. A sudden weariness overtook him in waves, and he found himself longing for sleep. They didn’t used to be like this, he and Charles, and he wondered just where it had all gone wrong.

His hands clenched inside his coat pockets, finally feeling the cold for the first time since Erik had stormed out. At least he’d been level-headed enough to remember his keys and wallet when he’d left. He could go back to the apartment if he absolutely had to, but he could more than afford a hotel room for the night. Perhaps that might be for the best. Better than sleeping on his and Charles’s lumpy excuse for a couch at any rate.

Something in him hesitated. He didn’t want to spend the whole night out on the street, but the idea of wasting all that money on a room wasn’t any more palatable. He really should go home, but that wasn’t much of an option either. He scowled and clenched his fingers around the smooth plastic of the phone in his pocket. What he really needed was a drink.

They hadn’t kept alcohol in the house for almost two months now to keep Charles away from temptation as much as possible. The last thing they needed was yet another setback in Charles’s slow uphill climb toward sobriety, but Erik now found himself itching for something, anything he could get his hands on. Hell, even a cigarette would do, but Erik had been trying to cut back on those as of late. Charles had cut out his vices, and Erik was doing his utmost to do the same. It was damn near impossible to keep up a smoking habit around here anyway.

One drink couldn’t hurt—Charles wasn’t with him after all—and he could stop by a corner store for gum or mints to hide the smell of it on his breath when he returned home. He could calm his nerves, dull the frustration spinning in the back of his head, and Charles would be none the wiser.

He glanced at the street signs above him and noted where he was before turning on his heel and heading back the way he came. It brought him closer to home, but there was a bar just down the road. He’d long since memorized the location of each one within a halfway reasonable walking distance of their apartment. Living with Charles had made that a necessity.

The dingy bar he was thinking of wasn’t too far off, and Erik had some cash in his wallet. Enough for a beer or maybe some cheap scotch. His feet carried him there faster than expected, somehow spurred onward by the promise of something to fight back against the heavy wash of frustration that was eating away at him.

His shuffling steps seemed far too loud in his ears as he stepped inside, even amidst the din of music and muffled conversation of the bar’s patrons hanging in the air. The place was familiar, but not particularly comfortable. He shouldn’t be here, but anything was better than home.

It didn’t take long for the alcohol to work its magic. He must have been getting soft with age for such a small amount of drink to be affecting him this way, but the pleasant buzz dulling the anger from earlier and the fact that his wallet wasn’t all that much lighter than when he’d started out was comforting. Erik fingered the smooth lines etched into the sides of his glass as his thoughts wandered back toward home. He glanced at the clock hanging behind the bar. It confirmed his suspicion that it had been an hour or so since he’d stormed out. Maybe Charles had cooled down in that time. He never had been much of one to hold a grudge.

Erik pulled out his phone and flipped it open. Six missed calls. Five new messages. His fingers hung over the keys, unsure of what to do. They were all from Charles; they had to be. And he would bet a month’s pay that each and every one was laced with the vitriol that had somehow taken over their relationship as of late.

He sighed. There wasn’t much of his drink left, but there was enough to make it through the next few minutes of insults and threats. What the hell. He typed in the password to open his voicemail and leaned up against the counter of the bar in preparation.

First message, sent one hour and two minutes ago.

_“What the hell, Erik. You can’t just walk out like that. Get your arse back here right now. We’re not done._

_I swear to god, you do this every time. A minor disagreement and you’re out the door with your tail between your legs like some sort of fucking coward, like a dog. One of these days I bet you’re going to just walk out and never come back, is that right? Was that your plan? Then you’ll be just like your father, you horrible fucking b—”_

Deleted. Next message, sent not three minutes later. Erik took a swig of his drink and set himself in for another round of chastisement. He wasn’t quite sure he was drunk enough to handle this right now, but he’d rather get this over with sooner than later.

_“Answer your damn phone. I know you still have it on or else it wouldn’t ring, asshole. Pick up. You—”_

Deleted. On to number three.

_“Erik, I know you’re there. Pick up the phone. Please. I need to talk to you.”_

He still sounded mad—that ‘please’ had definitely been ground out through clenched teeth—but it certainly didn’t seem as bad as before. Could be a good sign.

There was a time gap between that one and the message he was about to hear. Half an hour or so. He barely felt the burn of the last of his drink as it slid down his throat. Charles would either be calmer or more pissed off than ever, and as much as he wanted the former, he was betting on the latter. Charles’s anger burned rather cold after an argument like the one they’d had tonight.

Moment of truth. He pressed the button to play it.

_“Erik, why aren’t you answering? I’m not mad anymore, I swear. Please pick up. I just…Where are you? I…Erik, I need you to pick up. I need to talk to you.”_

Erik pulled the phone away from his ear, frowning. That wasn’t right, and that certainly didn’t sound like the Charles Erik knew. He listened to the message again. Short and oddly choked, exactly as he’d thought it sounded the first time around. Any trace of anger was gone, replaced by something Erik couldn’t name. There was a waver in Charles’s voice, a quiet sort of desperation that had Erik feeling more sober than before he’d set foot in the bar.

Erik slipped a few dollars out of his pocket for a tip and staggered away from the counter, his legs shaking. He hadn’t had that much to drink, had he? No, it was just nerves—nothing more than him getting worked up over something as stupid as a change in Charles’s voice on the phone—well, not unless he really was more of a lightweight than he’d thought.

Erik skipped to the next message as he slipped outside into the chill night air. There was a time gap for this message, too. Not as large as the last, but after the strange switch in tone in the previous message Erik found himself oddly concerned. Charles had been irritable as of late, yes, but he’d never been prone to mood swings. Not like that, anyway.

The message played, but Charles didn’t say a word for what seemed like an eternity. Erik could only hear the odd whisper of Charles’s breath as it hit the speaker. When he finally did speak, it was quiet and halting, almost a whisper, like Charles couldn’t find it in him to draw enough air into his lungs to form a proper sentence.

_“Erik, where are you?”_

There was a long pause, but Erik could still hear noise on the other end of the line letting him know the message was still going. He turned toward home, an odd sinking feeling building in his gut.

_“I’m sorry.”_

He quickened his pace. Something was wrong. Charles hadn’t sounded like that since they’d gotten the news of his sister’s death four years ago.

_“I love you.”_

The last call, the one without a message, had been made nearly fifteen minutes ago.

Erik ran.

\---

The door was unlocked, just as it had been when Erik had left. A few books lay scattered across the floor, and it seemed that Charles had broken the lamp they kept near the door in a fit of rage if the strewn bits of plastic, shards of glass and tiny pieces of twisted metal littering the carpet were anything to go by. Charles had always had a nasty habit of breaking things when he got angry.

The place was silent as the grave, and that had Erik’s heart jumping up into his throat. Charles was a lot of things, but quiet was not usually one of them. He always liked to have music playing or the kettle ratting away on the stove as he paged through piles of poorly-written essays and revised his lesson plans. There was a sudden heavy thud from the bathroom that caught Erik's attention, and his feet took him there before he even registered he was moving.

Red.

His vision swam with red as he stepped inside the open door.

Charles was laid out on the floor, skin as pale as the white linoleum surrounding him. There was blood everywhere, and Charles was so, so, still. Erik dropped to his knees and gathered Charles up into his arms, his hands scrabbling for purchase on the other man’s clothes as he shook him in a vain attempt to get him to open his eyes or say something, _do_ anything besides lie there like a limp rag. Nothing he did worked.

“No. No, no, no. You can’t do this to me.”

He grabbed at Charles’s bleeding wrists—there was so much blood; how can one person bleed this much?—squeezing until the bones of his fingers ground together. He had to stop the bleeding, but he couldn’t get his mind to think of how he was supposed to do that. He needed help.

He let go of Charles’s arm for a moment and fished his phone out of his pocket. It nearly slid out of his hand when he pressed it to his ear, his grip was so unsteady from the shock and wet sheen of blood coating his fingers. The kind, patient voice of the emergency operator barely registered in his ear as he blurted out the nature of the emergency and their address before tossing the phone to the floor with a clatter to pinch Charles’s wounds closed once more.

Erik’s body shook, so vibrant and _alive_ against the still form in his arms that it ached, and he couldn’t stop the traitorous tears that ran down his face as his fingers slipped over the wet skin of Charles’s wrists.

“You can’t do this to me, Charles,” he whispered to a man too far gone to hear him as his lips brushed against the damp sweep of hair clinging to Charles’s forehead. “You can’t.” _You can’t die on me. Not like this. Not yet. It’s not fair._

It took far too long for the burst of activity from the sudden flood of people pouring into the apartment to break his grip on the man in his arms, and Erik never really did figure out how he’d ended up in one of the many waiting areas of a hospital ward that night, the soles of his shoes leaving little smears of red on the pristine white floors.

\---

The thin teal scrubs the hospital had given him to wear itched, and Erik gave serious thought to going home and getting a change of clothes. He couldn’t wear the ones he’d walked in with. They were unsalvageable. Not that he particularly cared.

Charles was still asleep, and Erik clenched his fists in his lap and turned his face back to the open door and the people passing by their room in the hall outside.

He was so angry, he could barely contain it. How could Charles have done something like this? How could he be so selfish to think that this was the way to go after one stupid little fight? Erik’s hands tightened as he fought back tears. He was looking at this the wrong way, and he knew it. One fight among dozens wouldn’t have had ended with Charles lying here. There was more to it than that. There had to be.

He ground his knuckles against his eyes and slid out of his chair to lean against the wall. Sitting there like a dullard was only making things worse. He needed to get up, think. He had to find out what the hell had gone so horribly wrong that it had come to this.

He looked over at Charles’s sleeping form, at the dirty, unkempt hair that lay across his pillow and the white gauze holding the mess of his arms together like bands of tape. How could he have missed something like this? Charles wasn’t a stupid man, far from it, and neither was he. Erik should have known things had gotten this bad. He should have seen it coming from miles away and gotten Charles help before things got this far, but no, he’d let his own selfishness and pride leave him blind.

A nurse walked past the door, and Erik fought to swallow around the growing lump in his throat as he watched her slip her head inside one of the rooms just down the hall. He shouldn’t be here; he certainly didn’t want to be here, and Charles probably never wanted to see him again. An unwanted visitor in one of the last places on earth he wanted to be. He really ought to give up and go home, but he didn’t.

He simply couldn’t bear the thought of Charles waking up alone.

The nurse emerged from the other room and walked back in his direction, stepping inside briefly to check the fluids hooked into Charles’s arm before heading back to her station. She shot him a sympathetic look as she passed, and Erik wanted nothing more than to strangle her. He didn’t need her pity. He needed Charles to wake up so he could tell him what a stupid, stupid man he was and then head home before he did something he was sure to regret.

The time dragged on to the gentle tick of the clock above the nurses’ desk, and Charles slept, oblivious, while Erik kept his silent vigil.

\---

Erik almost didn’t notice when Charles finally opened his eyes, he was so distracted. It wasn’t until he heard the gentle shifting of blankets behind him that he was able to pull his focus away from the hall to the other man in the room. Charles was finally awake. Erik ran a hand through his hair and sighed, his exhaustion finally catching up with him. “Hello, Charles.”

Charles said nothing; he simply stared at Erik with an overwhelming blankness to his face that had Erik’s stomach twisting in knots. Erik ground his teeth together at the silence. Charles was never this quiet. Now that he thought about it, Erik wasn’t even sure he was coherent. And really, even if he were able, the last thing he probably wanted to do right now was talk to Erik.

But Charles was never one for predictability.

“What are you doing here?” Charles’s voice was soft and strained, like he was speaking with a hand clamped around his throat.

Erik huffed out a breathy laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. “I suppose I should ask you the same question.”

Charles’s expression didn’t change. He wasn’t angry, or hurt or amused; it was still that same terrible resigned emptiness. Had that always been there? If so, then maybe Erik didn’t know Charles as well as he thought he did.

He swallowed and held that tired blue gaze for a moment until Charles turned his head and looked away. The silence was overwhelming.

“You should go,” Charles mumbled softly to his lap, clenching his hands as tightly as he could under all of the wrapping holding him together.

Erik stared at him for a beat, ready to fight for his right to stay, but an overwhelming weariness took over him at the last second, and he simply nodded. There was nothing to say anyway. He quickly grabbed his wallet and keys from the chair he’d abandoned earlier just as the nurse from before wandered in to check on them again. He brushed past her and staggered out into the hall toward the elevators, the cheap fabric of his borrowed clothing whispering with his every step.

Erik knew full well that he wouldn’t be allowed back into Charles’s room until tomorrow morning—visiting hours had long since ended when Charles had been admitted—but he couldn’t stay here tonight. Not anymore. Charles didn’t want him, and Erik was too tired to fight it. Besides, Charles was in good hands here, wasn’t he? Now that he was awake, they’d surely have someone watching to make sure he stayed safe.

It was only once he made it past security and shuffled out the automatic doors of the hospital’s entrance into the cold night air—funny, it hadn’t seemed this cold before—that Erik realized he had no way of getting home. No car, no bike. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out the mass transit system in this godforsaken city, regardless of how long he’d been living here, and the hospital really was too far off from the apartment to walk. He was stranded.

He still had some money on him; he could call a cab. He _should_ call a cab unless he wanted to stay here all night or stumble around in the dark until he eventually made it home. He patted his side for his phone only to find unfamiliar fabric at his fingertips. No pockets. That’s right. His phone was still lying on the bathroom floor back at the apartment. He sat down on the edge of the sidewalk and draped his arms over his knees. There was probably a pay phone just inside, or, if nothing else, the front desk was sure to have a phone he could use.

He simply couldn’t bring himself to move.

A gust of wind bit at his cheek, but he barely felt it as his skin was already numb from something other than the cold. He rubbed the fingers of his empty hand together, trying to rid himself of the feel of Charles’s blood on his hands. It had long since been washed away, but it was still there. The metallic scent of it still hung heavy in his senses. It would probably be like that for days.

Erik bent his head low over his hands and tried to get his thoughts in order, pointedly ignoring the cold spreading over his body like a blanket. He had to go home sometime. No one else was going to clean the blood out of the carpet.

\---

Erik was allowed back into the hospital the next morning just as they were bringing in breakfast for the patients in Charles’s ward. He stood just inside the doorway with his arms folded tight against his chest as Charles poked at the sad yellow lump of what Erik guessed was supposed to be eggs with a cheap plastic spoon. Charles probably couldn’t be trusted with much else right now.

Erik sighed and looked out into the hall, not really seeing much of anything around the dry ache in his eyes from his sleepless night. There was a nurse—different from last night; a changeover from the night crew, then—not so subtly watching them from the desk at the nurse’s station. Good. Surveillance while still allowing them the illusion of privacy. Charles must have been watched after he’d left last night.

Erik glanced over at the other man. Charles had yet to take a bite of the food in front of him, and that horrible emptiness from last night had yet to leave his face. The scrape of the spoon against the plastic breakfast tray was driving Erik mad. Lord knew Erik didn’t want to eat anything—the closest he’d managed thus far had been a half a pack of cheap cigarettes whose scent he’d hopefully washed away in the quick shower he’d taken before coming over here. But then again, eating wasn’t really much of a concern for him. Not right now. After all, Erik wasn’t the one laid up in a hospital bed after trying to bleed out on the floor of their apartment. The thought of it all still burned a hot anger in the pit of his belly. He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath to calm himself. It wouldn’t do to lose his calm in the hospital room of a would-be suicide victim.

“Charles,” he said softly, trying to keep his frustration out of his voice. He got no answer. Erik looked over at the other man and let his shoulders drop.

“Charles, will you eat if I stay here?”

There was a pause before a soft “no” left Charles’s lips.

Erik sighed again. He didn’t want to do this. Not today. Not any day, really. “Do you want me to leave, then?” It would be easy enough to do. He hadn’t been able to get much done last night after finally getting a cab back to the apartment. There was still cleaning to do, people to call, excuses to make. Life was determined to go on, even though Erik’s world had come to a standstill.

Charles laid the spoon down on the tray and stared at his hands as silence settled over them once more. Erik shook his head and turned for the door.

“No, wait.”

He stopped and looked at Charles. The emptiness in his face wasn’t gone, but something else—a sort of quiet, pleading desperation that rekindled the burning ache in Erik’s chest—was crowding it out. “Stay,” he said softly. “Stay until they come and get me.”

Get him. For therapy. That’s right. Charles had therapy now. One of the night nurses had said something about that to him. Charles swallowed and stared down despondently at the food on his tray.

“Please.”

The word was harsh, choked and so very soft Erik thought it might have been in his imagination, but it was certainly effective. Even now, in a place like this, Charles had him wrapped around his little finger. Erik unfolded his arms and walked over to Charles’s bedside where the chair from last night was still sitting. His jacket was too warm for this room, and the leather kept catching against the heavy wooden back of the chair with his every move, but hopefully staying here was worth it.

He eyed the wholly unappetizing food on Charles’s plate and the way his limp, bandaged hand curled around the spoon. His own hands itched to reach out and touch him, but Erik kept his distance. Charles could probably smell the tobacco clinging to Erik’s clothes, something he claimed to have always hated. In retrospect, it probably was doing nothing to make the food look any more edible, but there wasn’t anything Erik could do about it now. Charles made no move to eat.

Erik sighed and slumped back in the chair, too tired to try and put up a fight. It wouldn’t be worth it anyway.

\---

The apartment was too quiet without Charles there.

Erik used to revel in the rare moments of silence he could steal around the house, but now everything seemed still and dead, like Charles’s absence had sucked the life out of the place.

The dim yellow light of his table lamp poured over the papers scattered across his desk, but Erik couldn’t get himself to focus on the words. He’d seen Charles at the hospital today, just like every other day, and it really didn’t seem like he was getting any better. The doctors said he was, though, enough to be released into Erik’s care within the next couple of days. Surely they knew better than Erik did.

And what did he know, anyway? He had missed everything. Everything of importance, anyway. How else could he have let something like this happen? Erik should have known better, and Charles should have given some hint that things had gotten this bad. Charles wasn’t exactly one to talk about himself, but people usually said _something_ before they tried to off themselves, right?

But Charles had said something, hadn’t he? Erik had been too stubborn to listen. He had the messages on his phone to prove it.

He leaned over the desk and scrubbed his hands over his face. It was too quiet.

Maybe he should turn on the television or put the kettle on to boil. Erik had no use for the hot water, but Charles always liked to have tea when he was thinking. He always got so upset when he didn’t have his damn tea. 

Erik got up and wandered into the kitchen. He flicked on the stove before quickly turning it back off. What the hell was he doing? He leaned over the counter and buried his head in his hands. Charles wasn’t here, and it was far too quiet.

And the worst part was that he couldn’t do anything to fix it. 

\---

“You’ve been smoking again.”

Erik looked out the window and watched the buildings pass by. The cab had a bit of an odd smell to it, but the driver was quiet and unobtrusive, which Erik preferred. His silence was more than enough of an answer for Charles.

“You know I hate it when you smoke,” Charles mumbled quietly.

“I know.” Silence fell over them. There were no excuses he could make, so he didn’t bother. Erik’s hands curled into fists over his knees as the cab pulled in view of the apartment complex.

“I don’t have my wallet.”

“I know.” Erik still couldn’t get himself to look across the cab to Charles. His hands clenched tighter.

“Erik, I can’t pay for the cab,” Charles ground out through his teeth. He kept his voice low in a vain attempt to be out of the hearing range of the cabbie.

“I know.”

Erik heard Charles sigh in defeat and lean against the door. His head hit the window with a soft thump, and Erik squeezed his eyes shut. Really, what did Charles expect him to say? He reached into his jacket pocket and dug out his wallet, tossing it over to Charles with a flick of his wrist. “Here, if you’re so worried about it.”

The cab slowed to a stop, and Erik bolted from the car as Charles fumbled with the cash in Erik’s wallet to pay the driver. It was stifling in the car; he needed to get out into the open air to breathe. The trunk popped open—Charles must have asked the driver—and Erik went to fetch Charles’s small bag of belongings from the back. Anything to keep people from talking to him.

Charles followed Erik, silent as a shadow, as they made their way into the apartment. Erik flung the bag onto the floor and walked into the kitchen to turn on the kettle. Charles liked his tea, and Erik had to keep him happy. They couldn’t go without tea. He opened the cabinet and fumbled with the various bags of tea, hoping to find the one Charles liked best. It seemed like an eternity since he’d last done this, and the instructions were all a blur in his head.

“What are you doing?” Erik turned and saw Charles standing in the doorway, still wrapped up in his heavy coat.

Erik gestured at the stove, his throat suddenly tight. “I, uh, tea,” he stammered, as though the answer was obvious. “You like tea.” God, things had never been this awkward before, not even when they had first moved in together.

Charles continued to finger the sleeves of his coat. the action was starting to get on Erik’s nerves. “You don’t have to make anything. I’m perfectly fine.”

“I…are you sure? It’s not—it’s no trouble.”

Charles stepped inside and leaned up against the wall, his eyes glued to the floor. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Whatever you want to do.”

Erik turned and pulled down another bag of tea leaves. The names of these things all seemed so foreign to him. The packages crinkled in his hands, and Charles was just _standing there_ , picking at the sleeves of his jacket, and “ _Will you stop that_?” Erik slammed his hands onto the counter with a bang, sending little flakes of tea leaves into the air.

Charles froze, barely daring to breathe. The tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife. Erik curled over the counter and carded his hands into his hair, his back still turned to the other man.

“I don’t know how to deal with this, Charles. You seemed fine. I just—why the hell didn’t you say anything?” His throat had gone tight with the tears that threatened to come bursting forth; his words came out choked and forced.

The silence that fell was deafening. Neither one of them moved a muscle for what felt like an eternity. Erik drew in a deep breath to calm himself and glanced back to see Charles ball his hands into fists. The thin strips of gauze he had wrapped around his wrists peeked out from where the sleeves of his jacket had ridden up. “And what exactly did you want me to say, Erik?”

Erik turned around, his patience finally at its end. “ I don’t know, anything! I don’t understand how you could do something like this to yourself.” _I don’t understand how you could do something like this to me._ The image of Charles lying there on the bathroom floor, his arms painted in blood, flashed through his head. His eyes were burning now, and he scrubbed his face to keep himself in check. “God, I’m so sorry, Charles. I should be making sure that everything’s okay, that you’re happy and safe and secure, and I can’t even do that right. I let you down.”

Charles looked down at the floor and tugged at his sleeves.

“It’s not your fault, Erik.”

Erik stared at him in disbelief. He wasn’t to blame for all of this, sure, but some of it was most definitely his fault; he and Charles had been fighting for months over the stupidest little things, and Erik had played into that more than enough. Charles didn’t do that all on his own because you couldn’t have a fight with only one person.

“Then what is this about? Are things bad at work that I don’t know about? Maybe something with your students or trouble with the administration. I know you’ve have problems with them in the past. Or does this have something to do with Raven? Or Kurt? What is it? There has to be something.” Charles hadn’t been quite the same since his sister’s death, and the whole mess with his nephew hadn’t exactly helped either. If that was the root of all this, then it was fixable. Talking about these things helped, right?

“That’s not—Erik, it’s not that simple.”

“Then what is it? Tell me, so I can help you.” _I can’t go through this again._

“I don’t know.” Charles’s gaze made its way back to the floor, and his fingers went back to worrying his sleeve. “I—Erik, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’ve been this way for a long time. As much as I hate to admit it, this isn’t even the first time something like this has happened. It’s not your fault.” He looked up and gave Erik a shaky smile. “There’s something off in my head—always has been—and even though I know you want to help, it’s not your job to fix it.”

Erik stepped forward and pulled Charles flush against his chest. He could feel the other man trembling faintly in his arms. “Then tell me what I can do. There has to be something,” he murmured into the soft sweep of Charles’s hair. “I can’t leave you to do this by yourself.”

He felt the warm press of Charles’s hands on his back as he curled his fingers into the smooth leather of Erik’s jacket. “I don’t think you understand.” He pulled back and looked up into Erik’s face, his smile finally reaching his eyes as he brushed his thumb over Erik’s cheek. “I’m not doing this alone because I’ve got you, and that’s more than enough.”


End file.
